Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

Chapter 121 Satellite Command Center

After the fall of Hydra Plateau, the Eastern Hemisphere began to react sluggishly.

The Iron Fortress Situation Room quickly discovered the anomaly.

After entering the designated flight path, an evacuation team suddenly disappeared from the monitoring projection for seven cycles. When the signal reappeared, they had deviated from their original route by thirty-seven coordinates and nearly crashed into an area that had just been marked as high-risk.

Subsequently, the second transport team received incorrect turning instructions.

The distress signal from the third medical fleet was delayed in being relayed.

The battle situation uploaded by the fourth defense node was displayed eleven cycles later than the actual time.

These things cannot be immediately labeled as "attack-related".

But on the battlefield, even a slight delay can turn a retreat into an encirclement, and it can also cause a commander to hesitate.

Iron Fort quickly traced the problem back to the satellite command center above Moye Heavenly City.

That was one of Cybertron's important orbital scheduling nodes, hovering in the geosynchronous orbit of Moye City, responsible for translating ground battlefield data, calibrating long-range communications, allocating satellite reconnaissance permissions, and providing synchronous high-altitude early warnings to surrounding cities.

-

The Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center is far from ground-based artillery fire, its outer shield is intact, and its orbital defense cannons are functioning well. The center has a triple access lock, requiring all commands to be verified by both ground and orbital systems.

In any conventional sense, it shouldn't have fallen so quickly.

But sound waves never intended to take it away in the conventional sense.

The first spoofed data packet had already entered its backup cache before the Hydra Plateau was lost.

At that time, it was labeled as a set of civilian energy statistics from the eastern industrial belt, quietly, like a grain of sand fed into the gap of a precision gear.

The second set of signals is disguised as a medical priority request from a retreat queue.

The third group disguised themselves as Iron Fortress wartime dispatch and verification teams.

The fourth group came from a transport ship that had already been destroyed.

Now, all that's left is to wait.

With the fall of the Hydra Plateau, communication pressure in the Eastern Hemisphere has increased, forcing the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center to frequently call upon its backup cache.

Then, the sound waves activated them.

The first anomaly at the satellite command center was that a duty officer discovered that the camera on orbit 17 was repeatedly playing back the same footage.

In the scene, the surface waterway below Moye Heavenly City is completely empty.

She frowned and reached out to access the live feed.

System response: Real-time.

She then switched the calibration time.

System response: Already corrected.

The screen remains empty.

Then, on another screen, an emergency alarm came from the ground defense station.

The Tyrant Assault Force had already arrived at the outskirts of Moye City.

There was still nothing in shot number seventeen.

The guard's optical glasses flickered violently.

"Turn off automatic calibration and switch to manual calibration!"

Before she could finish executing her order, the entire command center channel suddenly went silent for a moment.

Immediately afterwards, the backup channel came online automatically, all screens returned to normal, alarms continued to run, and commands continued to be sent.

Everything seems to be under control.

Only at the very bottom of the main permission list, there is an extra line of access records without a name.

-

Soundwave stood in the Decepticon's mobile command ship at the front line, looking at the layers of light screens unfolding in front of him.

The laser bird perched on his shoulder, its red optics reflecting the constantly fluctuating stream of data.

The defense map of the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center was peeled away layer by layer.

Outer shield, communication array, railgun, internal access control network, personnel distribution, emergency evacuation routes.

Every line is marked, and every node changes color.

"Central control authority has not been fully transferred," a Decepticon intelligence officer reported. "It is estimated that seven more cycle sections will be needed."

Soundwave raised his hand and tapped the screen with his fingertip.

The seven cycle sections were compressed into three.

On the screen, the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center sent its first complete battle report to the Iron Fortress.

The report states that the outer perimeter defenses are stable and no large-scale enemy fleet has been detected.

At the same time, the Decepticon assault ship had already bypassed its second orbital reconnaissance blind spot.

Second battle report: The communication delay was caused by residual interference from the Hydra Plateau, which is being resolved.

At the same time, three sets of engineering doors inside the center were remotely unlocked.

Third battle report: Requesting Ironforge to authorize the command center with investigation authority.

At the same time, the command to upgrade the defense level was intercepted.

The sound waves rewrote it into maintenance mode.

Therefore, the outer railgun of the satellite command center reduced its reaction speed according to the procedure, by only five percent.

As the Decepticon assault ship approached, the railgun slowed its turn slightly.

At that moment, it allowed the first landing team to land safely.

Then, the Decepticon assault force swarmed in.

When the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center discovered that it was being hacked, one-third of its internal privileges had already been taken away.

The officer on duty ordered all hatches to be sealed off—but there was no response.

She cut off external communications—external communications showed that they had been cut off.

However, her voice was still completely copied, modified, adjusted, and delayed by two seconds before being broadcast on another channel, disguised as an evacuation order.

"Personnel in Zone 7 should evacuate to the emergency exit on the east side."

Outside the emergency exit on the east side, the Decepticons had already breached the door.

District 7 was quickly lost contact.

"All units, assemble in the control room."

The command was never sent; the sound wave deleted it.

Then, he sent another message on behalf of the other party.

"The risk of contamination in the main control room has increased; all non-essential personnel have been evacuated."

Chaos began to break out inside the center.

It seems that every machine received a seemingly reasonable command, but each command deviated slightly from the actual required direction.

Little by little, the defenses became an empty shell.

Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center was opened by himself and handed over to Batianhu.

-

The main control room was lost, but no prolonged firefight occurred.

Several guards retreated to the rear of the central platform, attempting to manually destroy the orbital scheduling core. However, as soon as the destruction process started, a permission denied message appeared on the console.

[Permission denied]

The officer on duty looked up and saw the Decepticon logo appear on the main screen.

A purple symbol flashed in the center of the cold white screen, like an eye with a new pupil.

"This is the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center." She sent her last manual communication to Iron Fortress.

There was intense interference in the sound.

"Master control has been compromised. Repeat, master control—"

Communication is interrupted.

All Iron Fort received was a series of broken electrical sounds.

Then, the orbital monitoring screen across the entire Eastern Hemisphere flashed once.

When it lights up again, some areas are remarked.

Evacuation routes became high-risk areas, and high-risk areas became blank areas.

Several cities that were still observing received an official notification from the "command center": the Iron Fortress defense line was being adjusted, and it was recommended to postpone the evacuation.

After eleven cycles, Decepticon patrol boats appeared on the outskirts of those cities.

The satellite command center of Moye Tiancheng has been brought under the control of the Decepticons.

From that moment on, many cities in the Eastern Hemisphere were unsure whether they were hearing Ironforge's voice or the voice the Decepticons wanted them to hear.

When information is taken away, the map itself begins to lie.

-

Inside the Iron Fortress's command center, alarms lit up layer by layer.

"The Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center has lost contact."

"Abnormal access to Eastern Hemisphere orbit monitoring."

"Evacuation formations 36 to 42, recalibrate the route."

"Medical fleet, do not connect to the old channel. Repeat, do not connect to the old channel."

The commands were repeated.

Jazz looked down at the screen, his smile completely gone.

"They took our eyes."

The police car didn't look up.

"No matter how we look at it, what we see is wrong."

The ambulance driver cursed and reached out to disconnect a medical navigation system that had just automatically connected.

"All medical teams should switch to short-range manual calibration and not rely on automatic track forwarding."

The hall became even busier, and there was simply no time for fear.

Optimus Prime stood in front of the main projection, his gaze fixed on the flashing red dot above Moye Heavenly City.

"Re-establish ground communication links," he said.

"Establish a manual verification protocol on a city-by-city basis. Any instruction from the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center must undergo secondary verification."

Tongtianxiao quickly took notes.

"This will slow down the reaction time."

"I know, but at least the order has to be real."

All the machines were silent for a moment, then continued working.

-

After taking over the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center, Soundwave entered the judicial center through a neutrality agreement.

The Decepticon guards remained outside the outer protocol line.

The laser bird remained perched on his shoulder, its wings folded.

The outer defense system of the judicial center recognized his identity, pausing for a longer time than when Megatron entered.

Then, the door opened.

The sound waves went in.

He doesn't look much different from before.

Quiet, precise, without any unnecessary movements, only a bit colder and more solemn.

The vector lay in the hibernation pod, its bluish-green light falling on the transparent pod like a thin, still layer of water.

The sound wave stood at the doorway, not approaching immediately.

Laserbird lifted its head from his shoulder and looked at the hibernation pod.

There was no sound in the room.

This shouldn't be anything special for sound waves.

He was used to being silent.

Compress language into information, reduce emotions into judgments, and eliminate all unnecessary fluctuations from actions.

But the quiet inside this hibernation chamber is ultimately different from the quiet outside.

The silence outside can be listened to and broken down into frequency bands, delays, background noise, and hidden signals.

The quiet here is impossible.

The sound waves reached the hibernation pod.

His recording system turned off audio capture, but the video was still retained.

This is in accordance with regulations, but it also resembles a form of avoidance.

The laser bird swooped down from his shoulder and landed on a support next to the hibernation pod. It looked down at the gravitational vector; the red optics flashed briefly before dimming again.

Soundwave raised his hand and uploaded an encrypted tactical record to the judicial central archive system.

Records of the takeover of the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center, intrusion path, spoofed data packets, access transfer time, misleading channel list, and forced interruption of Iron Fortress communications.

All the content was organized in an extremely complete manner, almost like evidence.

The archive system receives the file and provides a confirmation prompt.

He didn't need to do that.

This record will not wake up the gravitational vector.

From a tactical perspective, there is no benefit in uploading information to the judicial central government.

From a safety perspective, there are even risks involved.

But he still did.

Perhaps it's because she always insisted that all procedures leave traceable records.

Perhaps it's because she once said that power without records is most likely to turn into a monster.

Perhaps it's just that after some modules are removed, old commands remain in deeper places, becoming lingering thoughts that cannot be completely erased.

The sound wave didn't play any recordings; it just stared at her for a long time.

She used to be able to understand his silence.

Now that she can't hear, the silence has lost its object.

He closed the upload page.

The archive system archives that tactical record to the highest-priority area.

Soundwave raised his hand, and the laser bird flew back onto his shoulder.

The door closed behind him.

Outside in the corridor, the indicator light for the neutrality agreement was coldly lit.

The sound waves reconnected to the Decepticon command channel.

The data stream from the Moye Tiancheng Satellite Command Center appeared in his field of vision.

Communications, evacuation, dispatching, and monitoring in the Eastern Hemisphere are being reorganized.